Phil Niekro "Knucksie"

If it seems like I’ve been writing a lot of articles about Baseball Hall of Famers that we’ve lost this year, it’s because I have. Phil Niekro makes number seven; he passed this week at age 81. He got a late start on his baseball career. He couldn’t manage to stay at the major league level until he was 21 years old; however, he would go on to pitch 20 more years until the age of 48. He bounced between the majors and minors for so long due to control problems with the pitch that would eventually make him famous, the knuckleball. Niekro’s catcher for several years, Bob Uecker, now a famous broadcaster, had this to say about Niekro’s knuckleball.

“Catching Niekro’s knuckleball was great. I got to meet a lot of important people. They all sit behind home plate.”

Most of his career was spent with the Braves. From 1965 to 1983 the Braves would only make the postseason twice. In 1969 they lost to the Mets and in 1982 they were eliminated by the St. Louis Cardinals. In between, he played for a lot of bad Braves teams with losing records. Looking back through some of his seasons there were many games he lost 1-0, 2-1, or 3-2. Many of these losses could have been wins had he pitched for a better team.

Not to say that Niekro was perfect, he wasn’t. When a knuckleball pitcher doesn’t get a lot of movement on the pitch it is no better than a batting practice fastball. Phil Niekro gave up 482 home runs in his career which is good for fourth all-time. In case you are wondering, the player who has given up the most home runs is Mariners Jamie Moyer, another knuckleballer who gave up 522. When Niekro had the pitch doing what he wanted, he dominated a game. In a 1973 game against the San Diego Padres he threw a no-hitter.

During the era before modern statistics, Niekro’s case for induction into the Hall of Fame came down to two numbers 318 and 3,342. Those are the number of his career wins and career strikeouts. For a pitcher, the 300 wins and 3,000 strikeouts marks were the gold standard for greatness. In this era his lifetime WAR of 97 would be the beginning and end of the argument.